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on negativity in fandom
I was writing this whole long rambling post about responsibility, and apologizing for and trying to minimize accidental harm, but then it changed tangents and I think what I most want to say is this:
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
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I'm not saying any of this to attempt to argue that people shouldn't say whatever they want, garbage trash etc. I'm just explaining the way my brain processes it and how I'm going to feel walking away from reading something like that. Like I'm somehow not aware of the flaws in this thing that I adore.
I actually find well-grounded critique easier to swallow because it targets a specific thing (eg. someone explaining why the don't like a specific thing because of X reasons is either valid or not valid and that's it, I can put that away) whereas the 'trash' tag kind of feels like it applies to the entire thing?
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Hmm. Okay, part of the disconnect here is that I don't mean "trashy" to mean "wrong"? Anything but. For me, when I say "trash," I genuinely mean it as a compliment. It means something is fun for me in a lighthearted way that means I don't have to take it too seriously. It's not that it has "trashy parts" and "good parts"; it's that the whole thing, to me, is a delightful mess of things I think are amazing and things I think are dumb, in a cheese silly way intermixed with moments of pure id appeal. It's not trashy for the bad bits that I genuinely want changed; it's trashy for the bad bits that I think are hilarious and goofy and make the whole thing better, for me.
I'm not sure if this is going to make it better or worse for you, so...caveat on the rest of comment, please skip it if it will just be annoying to you? I'm going to explain why I think of Guardian as "trashy" and I am going to be mentioning things that could definitely be taken as flaws -- but I'll only be talking about Guardian, so you don't have to brace for anything else getting dissed.
For me, what makes Guardian "trash" is the endearingly bad special f/x and the teeming crowds of ten people and t-shirts in Dixing. It's because most of the monster-of-the-week storylines are cliches and don't fully make sense, and absolutely no one cares because that is SO not why we are watching this show -- and the show knows it, and instead of concentrating on shoring up those weaknesses instead gives us more of Shen Wei lovingly tucking Zhao Yunlan into bed, while wearing a wallet chain that is connected to nothing and is kind of a weird choice for his character and exists only because it is criminally hot and frames his ass beautifully.
It's trash because you can recognize most of the main villains by the silliness of their wigs/dye-jobs. It's trash because mid-battle when Shen Wei gets cut, Zhao Yunlan grabs him to demand why isn't it healing, and the bad guys just stop attacking to watch because they find WeiLan as crazily adorable as all of us do. It's trash because China demanded Morality and so there is an episode about how Video Gamers Will Kill People -- but to make up for it they gave us Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan defusing a bomb with a ridiculous amount of wires and who cares if it's cliche because Zhao Yunlan kneels before Shen Wei and basically looks like he's proposing, and he grins and Shen Wei curls his lip in a way that absolutely means "Please stop turning me on when I am HOLDING A BOMB."
That's why it's trash, to me. Because these things wouldn't happen in Prestige TV, wouldn't happen in a drama you were meant to take seriously; but I don't want to take Guardian too seriously, and I love it for being like this!
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Haha, I RELATE. XD I mean, honestly, I think it's easier for me to understand exactly what you mean right now because my main fandom (we all know the one) is one in which I have to actively ignore/write around/headcanon out a significant chunk of canon in order to get it to work, because it's either badly written, completely contracts something in another part of canon, is something I genuinely dislike, or it's just like ... I think I get what they're going for there, it's just that it literally DOES NOT come across on the screen, but I plan to write it as if it WAS actively on the screen if they'd had either a better budget or more coherent writers, or both. XDDD
And yet, the parts that I like are incredibly iddy and fun and infinitely rewatchable for me!
So I'm kinda writing the best-parts version that exists in my head and which consists of me end-running around the parts of canon that make my inner writer quietly scream into a pillow. And I sort of ... typically talk about it as if it is that version.
But I also do genuinely enjoy the affectionate mocking thing. Honestly I think that's why I have been so much more successful at getting people into this show than into, say, Agent Carter, which I love so much that I really can't handle criticism of it. It's difficult for me to talk about it with people who are not all the way out to the "squee" end because it's so intensely personal to me that I tend to nope out of conversations that tend to go in an even mildly critical direction. Whereas Iron Fist, and really everything in the general Defenders stable of shows, for me anyway, are just sort of fun to gently mock because they ARE kind of cheesy and ridiculous and not quite all they could be, but I'm also not sure if I'd love them in the same way or find them as easy to talk about if they fell into that "perfect canon, I cannot bear criticism" kind of category. I not only can bear criticism, I am sometimes the first person bringing it. XD But I also have written reams of fanfiction about them and just kind of want to cuddle them like a big silly puppy. Which I kinda get the feeling is how you relate to Guardian, too. (Which I honestly think I WOULD really like; I just haven't been in the right headspace lately for a new show like that!)
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THIS exactly.
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And for the shows I tend to consider trashy, I guess the, hmm, gap, between the show and the "real story" is wider? So some of the fun for me is mocking the show, in part for having "errors" in how true it is to the "real story"...and for me, talking about those things as errors just solidifies the "real story" in my mind, makes it something I enjoy all the more, for being better than what we actually see on screen.
--And I think that's partly why I do enjoy my "trash" shows so much, because I have that kind of...control, over them? With the Type A shows that I admire, they cleave (in my mind) closer to the "real story" -- so if they do something that breaks my heart, I have to just accept that that's "what really happened." While as with the trashy shows, if I don't like something -- NOPE, rejected, that's not how it really went; the show just made a mistake, and I can still write and read the "real" version in fic! :P
(...and I realize this all sounds vaguely delusional, but it kind of is how it works in my head? ^^;)
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I think the way I conceptualize it personally is that I'm constantly editing and revising pretty much anything in my head as I watch it. There's really nothing that doesn't require SOME mental editing to get from TV-reality to fictional-reality - for example, even really excellent canons usually have the thing where women wake up and step out of the shower fully made up, and unless you want to come up with some kind of strained bullshit handwave in fic for why women in this reality have tattooed makeup and/or they found a makeup kit in the ruins of the post-apocalyptic bunker, you just handwave it as "fiction reality" and write the version in which they wake up looking like most women do when they wake up.
I think I also don't have too much trouble mentally working around, for example, budget restrictions where it's obvious that some kind of ridiculous effect made out of tinfoil and a 9V battery and hope, in the world of the show, "really" looks much better than the f/x were able to convey. Or the 8 people and a shoelace who obviously WOULD have been an entire town if they'd been able to afford it. Even in shows with really great production effects, they tend not to show things like, say, the characters exercising and practicing for 6 hours a day to have the knife-throwing and acrobatics skills that they would need in order to do their thing at the climax.
I mean, I think even people who don't really think of themselves as doing any of this are doing at least SOME of this because on some level cinema-reality runs on its own set of absurd conventions just the same as theater-reality does.
But I think for me the characterization and actual events of the show are the hardest to work around without going completely AU -- like, I don't have much trouble handwaving some makeup/cardboard-set issues and laughing at them without it breaking my suspension of disbelief, but what I do have trouble actively tossing out the window are actual show events and/or stated canon. And I do like to closely analyze canon and try to pick out the "actual" version of events/characterization as closely as I can. And deviating from that tends to take me into AU territory. But there's also a certain level of "welp, of course that's what it's going to be, because XYZ real reason." So I guess I fall in the middle. But this does make sense to me!
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With Guardian as an example: if I'm actually thinking about the t-shirts (never noticed) or wigs (never noticed) of the minor characters and villains on this show then I can't enjoy it. That's literally as simple as this is for me! When I see a show like this, I'm not expecting it to have an accurate representation of an actual real Dixing, with correct architecture and a whole lot of thought put into how it would actually function. Dixing on the screen for me is kind of like an impressionist painting, giving me just enough information for my mind to conjure up the real Dixing in my head. The descriptions of exactly what is wrong with each brushstroke make me analyse the painting style, which I do not want to do in the least when I'm fanning. I'm fine with it when I'm trying to think about the general industry of making tv shows, or how this show fits in the tv show landscape, but as I'm watching it for the characters/plot/whatever, it's out of scope for me to think about their wigs or whatnot. It just...really doesn't even occur to me. If I see something that's a bad special effect my mind goes to "substitute" it in my head with meaning.
Anyway, I think these things totally happen in Prestige TV, just in different ways. Ways that we're trained to ignore in the same way my mind automatically ignores the stupid little things in Guardian, by default. In "Prestige TV" you could have Natasha Romanova and Bucky Barnes say Russian sentences that would absolutely never be uttered by them if they actually got one (1) Russian person to consult on their blockbuster movies. It's just that we ignore this (we try very hard to ignore this) because it doesn't matter for the purposes of the movie whether they have trashy accents or not. We've been told that the Winter Soldier speaks Russian and that's good enough for us. Same with Wigs on the Guardian :)One could argue this is "just a superhero movie" but then where do we draw the line? I have a similar reaction to Oscar-worthy films. I usually have to ignore a couple of things that are clearly stand-ins for what the creator meant, even if they don't do a good job for me personally. So to me, an Oscar-worthy movie with wonderful special effects has a lot of flaws that I could try to find and focus on but I don't do that because I'm there to have a good time. Similarly, I don't notice the flaws of the Guardian because I'm just there to have a good time. As in I really don't SEE them until pointed out. Like Sholio says elsewhere, my mind substitutes the best version of the thing in their place and that IS canon for me afaik.
I don't know if I'm explaining it well, and I don't really...want to turn your post about something tangential into this! And I'm 100% fine with people calling things what they want to call them in their space! I just think it doesn't hurt to have awareness of how other people process fan stuff. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying it how you want, basically :)
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If I'm following you, what you're talking about is basically suspension of disbelief? Or immersion -- basically, for you to enjoy a show/movie/etc, you have to be able to suspend your disbelief, to, while you're watching, basically believe it's "real" on some level -- that version you're conjuring in your head.
And yeah, that's often a difference between "prestige" fiction and other stuff, that they require less suspension of disbelief -- not none, because no movie or show can be 100% realistic, and they all rely on storytelling tropes and things. But shows with higher budgets, more careful writing, etc, have less of those moments that can potentially throw you out of the story.
But then, this is subjective -- when you're fanning, when you're really loving characters, you can "suspend" a lot for them; while if you're watching a supposedly high-quality show, but the characters just don't grab you, they can seem wooden and unbelievable no matter how carefully the sets and special effects are arranged.
And I'm guessing this is why you don't really like behind the scenes stuff/stuff with the actors, either, because it breaks your immersion?
And I guess, for me -- I sort of don't need my disbelief suspended, a lot of times? Or, hmm, I can slide in and out of it at will? For me, I can laugh at bad f/x, and I can admire thoughtful acting choices, and I can also be having that mental version in my head of the "real" story, which is why I write fic to -- I don't have much trouble doing all those things simultaneously. They don't interfere with each other, for me. --For the most part...there are occasionally weird film things that drive me nuts to the point that they'll spoil certain scenes for me, because I can't stop noticing them. But on the other side, sometimes they add in and make the experience more enjoyable for me. And a lot of times it's just neutral. So when I'm, say, mocking Guardian for poor f/x, that doesn't have any bearing on how much I enjoy the Guardian story as a story -- that idealized version of the story in my head stays untouched, while it means I enjoy the show side of it more because it makes me laugh, so overall it's a net positive for me...
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It's also exactly as you say, why I find it difficult to enjoy actor stuff without it impacting my mental version of the "real"/"idealized" story. Essentially if actor stuff lines up with that story it's fine, I don't mind it, but if it clashes I have this "double-vision" problem and as I'm re-watching the "real" show I can't help thinking about the fact that these are actors acting, and people filming etc. (Like kissing especially, I read an actor talking about what filming a kissing scene is like for them and suddenly couldn't watch ANY kissing scenes because I'd be wondering where the camera was at that moment.) So if the actor is super sweet and happy and they're playing someone somber and stoic, I can't help sensing that the sadness is faked? I know it's ALL acting, but I can't pretend I don't know, in that case.
I like analyzing things a lot and generally tend to integrate all my knowledge into one coherent picture, and so in this scenario knowing the technical aspects (or paying attention to them) means I'm no longer as involved in it as something "real" in my head. It's just how it's always worked for me, and so I manage this by basically death-of-an-author-ing everything for myself by not looking at things :-)
And it's truly fascinating to read how it works for you! I'm glad you wrote it down, because it's a different look at it for me. I'll think about it more and see if I ever feel that way about other things. I think fanfic works that way for me, because I enjoy creating writing as much as I enjoy consuming it. So I can read it as this idealized story, and then read it as a writer trying to learn tips&tricks from it, and one does not interfere with the other. The "craft" of the story doesn't interfere with the idealized version playing out in my head. I've never thought about it in context of the difference with watching something, for me. (I think part of it is that I have a strong visual memory so I can't "unsee" the image of it, such as an expression or emotion... Anyhow.)
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I think the way you describe fanfic, that the craft aspect doesn't interfere with the idealized version, is actually somewhat more like how profic/movies/TV work for me, but there still IS a tipover point where it's too much craft, not enough idealized/fictional reality. I also relate to my own work that way. I can handle analyzing/editing my own craft up to a point, but I do hit a point where it's just like "nope, I have reached the "good enough" point beyond which I'm going to start destroying my own belief in the fictional reality of my world, NOPING OUT NOW." XD
And fwiw, it's taken me a lot of thinking and analyzing and accidentally crossing the line to figure out where that nope-out point actually is for me. I shall now tell you a tragic story of a younger me circa 2015. XD I made a conscious decision to quit writing in early 2015, and genuinely might have quit for good if not for
The eventual tl;dr is that I'm making six figures off my romance writing now, so I was wrong; I just hadn't found the right outlet for my writing to be, all of a sudden, incredibly commercial. And the thing I really should've also considered then (but didn't, at the time, because I was hung up on objective concepts of good vs. bad writing) is that it's incredibly difficult for a show to go for even two or three seasons now, let alone five, so latching onto a five-season show as a source of writing inspiration is not actually a bad move, no matter what other people say about its objective quality. I mean, at this point I kinda just want to turn to every person who scoffs at "50 Shades of Grey" and thinks they have nothing to learn from it, take them gently by the shoulders, and say, "If this is terrible and you know how to do better, then go out there and make even more money than it did. Come back and tell me all about how bad it is after you've done that." Easy, right?
..... Well, no. Of course not. (If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. AS THEY SAY.)
The thing is, yeah, I analyze craft. I do it all the time. But you can also do it too much, if you lose sight of what the craft is trying to convey, and the fact that it is actually doing it well. I think people can get really hung up on the details of objective writing/acting/fx quality and lose sight of "does it do what it set out to do" which, you know what? Sometimes shitty porn that just gets you off is much better for that purpose than well-written porn. Sometimes relatively clumsy writing that is just trying to punch you in the feels has a much more effective punch than something with better writing. And if you get sidetracked onto detailing the errors of its writing, you get lost in a "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of mentality, and lose sight of what it did most effectively in the first place, which was grab you by the neck with feels and drag you kicking and screaming into FEELS COUNTRY. And that is genuinely good writing! It's not the kind that wins Pulitzer prizes, but it is also something that a lot of Pulitzer-winning writers literally couldn't do if their lives depended on it.
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Look, the general consensus in fandom these days, as far as I can tell, is that SGA is terribly written. And I look back sometimes on me circa Jan. 2015, rereading and rereading my SGA fic and trying as hard as I could to find the terrible in it, and crying my eyes out -- like, literally sobbing for days -- because I couldn't find it
Hah, yeah, this is where I have such a major disconnect, because -- I do think SGA is largely not a very well-written show. But I think the fanfic for it is fantastic, the level of quality of fic for that fandom was unusually high. I honestly think I became a better writer writing fic for SGA because I was trying to match the level of creativity and development and such that was in so much of the fic.
But I still don't think the show SGA itself is that well-written. And some of that is because, yes, there is a difference between "good" and "well-written" and "inspiring" and "marketable"; those are all different if interrelated qualities. Also in the case of SGA, it's a TV show, so writing is not the only element at play. E.g. I don't think SGA is that well-written but I do think it was fairly well-acted; several of the actors brought way more to the characters than the writers put there. Also the writers who created those characters, and the universe, were not the writers of most of the show, so that makes a difference too -- who do you credit for what writing? Can a show have both good and bad writing? (of course it can!) And then, a lot of the fic was building on itself; the fanon version of Atlantis I personally feel was way more interesting than the version we saw on the show, and I don't feel that's to the credit of the show writers but to the fan writers. So the SGA fanfic output was greater than the sum of the TV show's parts, imho.
I'm torn about the idea of popular means it's good. I mean, I'm undecided, I don't know!! Because there's a certain degree it's true, that yes, something that grabs the attention of a whole bunch of people has to have *something* to it. But then, something like 50 Shades of Gray, that didn't just happen in a vacuum; the writer had the connections to get it published and distributed. And then a huge part of it is luck, that this is the story that people read, that builds momentum until everyone is reading it.
At the same time -- I think reading fic has given me a very broad appreciation of "good" and how subjective it is. I sometimes read fic that have basic SPAG errors but I still plow through because the writer just *gets* the characters in really satisfying and creative ways. And then there are fic by really popular writers that I will agree are technically beautifully written but leave me cold. But I wouldn't say either is badly written...
So yeah...I don't really think there is an absolute objective "good." At the same time, I personally do differentiate between "things I like that I think are good" and "things I like that I think are less good". It makes a difference in how I recommend them and who I recommend to, and how I relate and fan on them. And for me, thinking something is "less good" doesn't mean I think it's worthless or pointless. Often, it just means I think something has potential, but it could be better (and for me, writing fic and coming up with meta and so many fannish things is one of those ways to make it better!)
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Anyway, I realize in retrospect that getting hung up on the idea that my work is terrible because "people are saying X" is ridiculous no matter what anyone is saying about whatever, and I definitely don't want it to sound like I'm blaming anyone in fandom for it. It was not a very resilient time in my life, I have no one but myself to blame, and I'm in a much better place now! And I think that for me, thinking of media as being more or less good at specific things is more ... well, healthier for me than thinking of them as being overall good or bad. In a similar kind of way, I know that I am better at some writing-related things than others -- I'm not really a "craft" writer in the sense of beautiful prose, I don't think I'll ever win awards, but I'm a damn good feels writer (if I do say so XD), and I've been much happier since I just started embracing that rather than trying to aim for a target that wasn't really where my skill set lies.
And I also think there's an often-unacknowledged subjectivity to talking about media as good or bad (though I know you do address the subjective aspect, and like analyzing it!) that can lead to fan fights, because a lot of times what people mean when they say something was good! or great! or awful! is just that it did or didn't touch them in a particular way, and then they can run up against someone saying the opposite, and there's just no way really to find common ground there ...
But I also agree with what you're saying here:
At the same time, I personally do differentiate between "things I like that I think are good" and "things I like that I think are less good". It makes a difference in how I recommend them and who I recommend to, and how I relate and fan on them.
I mean, yeah, there are things where I'm like "This is so great!" and go around suggesting it to my friends and family including people outside fandom, and things where I feel like I need to preface it with a lot of caveats and don't really recommend it to people I don't think would be into whatever its tropes are. I also kinda feel like the "less good" kind are the sort of shows where I tend to get into them gradually and then get seized hard, as opposed to more objectively well written media that I appreciate from the beginning for their craft, even getting sucked in from the very first scene or sentence, but they often don't drive in the emotional nails as hard as the ones where I was kind of eyerolly about the first episode and then starting to feel it by episode 5 and then ohgodgivememoreNOW by the end of the first season. XD
(My sister once described this feeling as "This is terrible! Give me more!" I think this was the time we went through three seasons of Beast Wars in like 3 days.)
Anyway ...
Among other things, I am really sensitive to mocking out of love vs mocking out of dislike. Like, a lot of my intensely fannish shows that I think are sort of trashy, I will not watch with non-fans. To the point of turning the TV off when people enter the room, as if I'm watching something E-rated ^^;;; I find it deeply uncomfortable because I can't squee if I feel like the source of my squee is being judged.
YES. THIS. I mean, not precisely to the turning-off-the-TV point, but like ... I really don't want to watch Iron Fist with Orion, and I doubt if he'd be a good person to watch Guardian with, either. Whereas I think you and I would probably have a really good time watching either show with each other; I think we'd have a similar attitude towards it. There is definitely a key difference between people being harshly or mockingly critical of something they don't like, and people being just as mocking but in a loving way. You can tell! And I do enjoy the tongue-in-cheek kind of friendly mocking. It's like teasing your friends vs. having someone who doesn't like them make fun of them. It might not even be objectively harsher, but it feels different!
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But yeah, in general, I have never felt like my fanfic is not good enough to be fanfic, that is to exist. I've always had trouble putting out fic that doesn't "say" anything. I.e. even if I'm writing fluffy nothings or pure iddy h/c, I need to know what the story is "about" in order to justify time spent in my head writing it. But once I have that, it basically comes down to how well I managed to capture that idea, the fic stands on its own merit at that point. It was either well executed or poorly executed, from my pov, but it's not ever "worthless" anymore.
In a similar way, something like Zoe executes well if it delivers the particular fantasy to the readers. I am not there to compare it to Dostoyevsky or something like that because the purpose of writing the story is different, it delivers different fantasy/ideas/etc. But that said, the Zoe story for me needs to be about some idea, some angle of that fantasy that is unique to it, or it doesn't feel substantial enough to spend time on.
So yeah... I haven't had a major crisis of faith in this craft the way you've had, I just have had a series of minor crises. The yeas I haven't written fanfic were the years I was afraid I had nothing to say, rather than feeling like if I did it wouldn't be worth spending time on it, if that makes sense.
On the other adjacent point you made about editing your own work, I have definitely reached the "overediting" stage where everything starts to seem awful. Sometimes you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes you need to be in the exact mindset you were in when you wrote it to believe in the feels. It's a delicate balance for me too.
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Responding here to both you and xparrot's comment below:
On the subject of "good", I would ask "for what?"
For example: Are you learning new vocabulary from reading this book even though the story itself is boring? That develops a skill, so the book is good for that.
VS:Are you instead learning something about how the world works, even though the book is written in very simple language? That enriches your life in a different way.
One thing doesn't need to be good in every category. In fact, I don't think a single work, no matter how amazing, can be good in all categories. There will always be some aspect in which it isn't as good as something else... so I just don't generally compare things like that.
If I'm looking at a show like SGA, it basically either delivers on the entertainment promised without breaking my suspension of disbelief OR my ideals or it doesn't. At one point during SGA I actually walked away for a while (around S2 when they were torturing Kavanaugh) because I felt my idea of what an idealized fantasy world would look like vs the shows differed too significantly. (I suspect the real world events at the time impacted my enjoyment too). But overall, SGA delivered enough satisfying moments for me to keep watching.
I was in the fandom 90% for the fic though. I never quite got past the way it wasn't SG-1, and the show itself was never a fandom I was super into, while I've read almost every fic about Rodney and Sheppard that was written at the time all the same. XD
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One thing doesn't need to be good in every category. In fact, I don't think a single work, no matter how amazing, can be good in all categories. There will always be some aspect in which it isn't as good as something else... so I just don't generally compare things like that.
THIS. Honestly, I think this is why I don't feel even slightly guilty about being in fandoms for shows that are not good at ... women, say, or race, or religion, or whatever. I mean, I will try to caveat this when I'm reccing it to someone for whom I think that'd be a problem, but literally everything has some areas in which it's just Not Good, even the very best things! And because I do look at craft, and I read a lot of thinky, pull-stuff-apart kind of meta, I'm generally aware of that even for things I'm not into, so I don't feel any particular need to be hyper-aware of it for things that I am into aside from being aware enough of it to try not to replicate its specific issues in my own writing.
I haven't had a major crisis of faith in this craft the way you've had, I just have had a series of minor crises.
In some sense I think writing is basically just a series of minor crises. XDDD
Those conversations we had a few years ago about not being able to "let go" and really feel things, and how it can make it impossible to write if you aren't able to give yourself up emotionally to the writing -- that was such a game-changer for me, in how I think about writing and how I work through my own cases of writer's block. I've been a lot more unapologetic about just writing feelsy fic since then. In the words of 2000s-era fandom, THE MUSE DEMANDS IT. xD
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Heh, I totally get this! It's not how it works for me, exactly -- when it comes to characters, I am mostly impressed/amused by actors who are very different from their characters. I just love finding out that the evil hated villain was the most popular guy on set and everyone enjoyed working with him! And likewise brooding characters played by cheerful bright actors just make me happy. (I love watching blooper reels of my favorite shows, seeing the actors break in and out of character is just so much fun for me!)
But when it comes to character relationships -- I really do not want to know that two actors playing my favorite friendships or OTPs don't really like each other. Even if they're good at showing their acting skills by acting chemistry...that doesn't completely ruin something for me, but it makes me less comfortable. Which I think is true for a lot of fans, even RPF fans, considering how many RPF fans ship the actors who play their fictional OTPs (for me the romance or lack thereof doesn't bother me, like, I'm very happy if my fictional romantic OTPs are played by people who are totally platonically friends -- but I want them to be friends. In Guardian knowing the two leads became genuine RL friends (they still play video games together, two years after filming ended!) is so good for me!)
And yes, I can analyze the craft of writing in fic and novels too, and slide back and forth between analysis and fanning! Even with my own writing -- I'm actually very capable of squeeing over my own fic, even when I am fully aware of the technical process that went into writing it. And I have beta'd fic that I also just adore on the fannish level. So yeah, that's how I watch TV shows too (actually I really love being able to do it with TV shows, because when I'm fanning on a show I watch it way more often and more closely than I do anything else, and that allows me to notice and appreciate things like direction and editing and subtle acting choices that I would miss if I weren't so engaged...)
ETA: I do wonder if the visual memory is part of it -- I have practically no visual memory, my mind works almost entirely in words? So my mental pictures aren't strong, it's the story that is. (and dialogue, I am really sensitive to voices and voice acting...)
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Yeah, I get this, I would rather believe that there's some "truth" to the acted out versions of these characters.
Having a wildly different person IRL acting as someone else on screen -- the knowledge of it -- can impact me.
ETA: for example finding out more about Misha Collins severely threw me out of SPN in some ways, to the point I was watching the show for acting choices rather than content.
Another good example is if one actor plays several very similar roles. Even watching those roles makes them all blend in my head, to the point where I don't know where one character ends and where the other begins. That double-vision thing as I said. If the roles are very different I am okay. (eg. I have no problem watching RDJ act in Iron Man vs in Sherlock Holmes because the costumes/setting/etc are very different. I can't ever remember a scene from Sherlock Holmes which would mesh in my head with MCU, for example).
ETA2: Another example, I could not watch the original MacGyver specifically because the main character feels too much like Jack O'Neill to me and I couldn't believe in the 'realness' of Jack anymore if I watched the actor playing someone else.
And I do think it has to do with visual memory. I have less of a memory for voices. I do remember the cadence of words and the style of speech (I don't think you can write anything if you don't have that) but the movies in my head are more visual. I can remember how someone stood or looked at a particular moment, so I'm very sensitive to any images of "same looking" character.
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I know that people use it in a light-hearted way on Tumblr, and I always sort of took it as a guilty/embarrassed kind of thing, like "I am putting it down before anyone else can put me down for it because I know it's Bad but I also like it and that's the only way I can justify that dichotomy".
And that's kind of ... a little bit of it, maybe, but I think I never really quite got it before talking with
(I love that we have recreated Trash Discourse in
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Yeah I didn't really mean to recreate it! Please don't feel any pressure to respond to my ramblings, either of you.